Store Discord May Result in Employee Walk-Out

You go guys! Solidarity!!

Wow, that’s funny. I formerly worked in a different Seattle-area store, and I thought the Alderwood management were all bitches, but that U Village’s manager was WAY worse, so whatever floats their boat! Go Alderwood!

They will fire them all in a blink-

I seen’ed it!

(Pineapple Express, not just bad grammar)

@ Johnny Mozzarella: “They should probably replace everyone who walks out”
—-
Way to give corporations their way with the workers. Do you somehow think the workers came to this action lightly? Losing pay and risking one’s job for a greater good is admirable not condemnable. “Should” replace them? Do you not see any chance that the workers might be right? That store must have some serious problems and to just fire the workers would be for Apple to treat the symptom and ignore the root causes. And that would be pretty bad (and stupid) management.

What a coincidence this ? Store “revolt” happened next door to Redmond, WA in a Lynnwood, WA mall store a couple of miles away.

I think the MS flack machine is in full gear.

James Bogard

Wow, this is interesting to know, especially the comment from Miguel that many of the employees lack proper Apple backgrounds. I have worked for a reseller for Apple, have Apple Product Pro certifications, and they denied me an interview at a new store opening down in California. I was the only one with a solid Apple background. So to have people with little/no knowledge working there baffles me.
However, I am commending their solidarity by walking out, since that should hopefully bring to attention to management the issues that they have failed to address. If there are labor violations, they should be contacting the state L&I and file an official complaint.

I’m also a former Apple Store employee, and I did see some very bad times and some good times. One of the worst bits of bullying I witnessed involved two managers conspiring to make an employee think he was responsible for a theft to “teach him a lesson.” In another case I found that employees were being stalked online by managers to make sure that they never said anything about Apple. This resulted in a manager using personal attacks on an employee based upon a blog post. The manager was reprimanded for doing this.

There was a great deal of subtle bullying in the store, but I excused this as normal retail people not knowing how to work with geeks. People who come from a normal retail background have a different mental state than people who want to work in technology, even peripherally.

It was more of an alpha-dog trying to assert him/herself on someone who has a strong independent streak, and no patience for stupidity (geeks are often resistant to authority, and retail has a lot of stupid seeming or demeaning rules to follow). Conflict is inevitable.

As a former ARS GM, I’ll share a few thoughts and comments,

First, “Anonymous”, you accept a job based on the pay and job requirements. If you don’t like it – leave. But, don’t complain. This is a free market economy so you are compensated for the work you are asked to perform. If you feel like folding shirts at some clothing store is better for you then have at it. You knew the pay, the job description, and the managers before you took the job. If you don’t like it then find another job.

This is the typical whining that the entitled twentysomethings of today… “give me money but don’t make me work for it.” I can tell you that this attitude plagues Apple’s stores. When coupled with the fact that this is the first ‘real job’ for many of the employees, the expectations they have of the company and their managers is unrealistic and unmatchable.

Look, Apple Retail is still pretty awesome, but it’s not perfect. And that’s really the problem. Just like Apple’s customers expect perfection from the products and bitch and moan when they don’t get it; Apple’s employees expect the perfect retail employer and cry and whine when reality doesn’t meet this unrealistic expectation.

It’s been said a million times in stores, so let’s say it again… welcome to a job folks, you don’t realize how much better Apple Retail is than what else is out there, until you try working for another retailer.

I agree with ‘Gustav’ that the term “abusive” needs clarification and specifics attached to it. Plus, there are two sides to every story. Many times, hourly employees claim an Apple manager did this or that, but failed to mention the compromise suggested, the options offered, the attempts at resolution, or the actual truth.

With that said, I also see that in impasse with Ron Johnson as all but impossible. Ron is one of the most supportive and professional executives I’ve ever known. He repeatedly goes the extra mile to do-right by the employees who he values. If there’s an impasse, I’d start to believe that the employees aren’t sharing the whole story. (see paragraph above)

Further, depending on Washington law, it’s doubtful Apple would ‘fire them all’. Any impropriety would be grounds for a class action lawsuit, something Apple will avoid. Plus, I can assure you that the scuttlebutt created on this site will shake some attention at ARS corporate.

Last, in regards to the GAP inbreeding… there’s a reason ARS’ internal nickname is Gapple. The number of people recruited from the GAP was disgusting. If there were that many qualified superstarts at the GAP, that company would be doing better than it is. I honestly was amazed that the executive team continued to allow so many GAPers to be hired. They all came with the same ideas, same experience, and same unfamiliarity with consumer electronics retail. Rather than seeking the best and brightest from an array of retailers, ARS continued to drink from the same well even though the water was murky. What a shame.

Just my opinion, based on experience. Hi Tink.

Rumor? I just called the store and they said, “Not true, its a rumor.”

Larry F.

All for it. And yes I used to work there as well. All but that store in fact in Washington. Corporate is one thing. But retail is a very different monster altogether. BTW, what’s up Miguel!

If the employees don’t like the working conditions at a store, they should quit and go somewhere they’ll be happy. Personally, I wouldn’t want to work in retail for anybody, but there are plenty of people who DO want to work for Apple. Frankly, we don’t know what the facts are at this particular store. We’re told that many of the employees are unhappy. Well, I’ve been in places where employees were unhappy, but the employees were just plain wrong — where they were lazy or had bad attitudes or whatever. I’ve been in other places where management was clueless and stupid, and employees suffered frustration as a result. We have no way of knowing which is true here (or even if the problem is as big as it’s being made to sound). The bottom line is that the stores belong to Apple, which has the right to run them as it sees fit. If employees don’t like the way the stores are run, they’ll leave. If enough employees leave, it will degrade the customer experience and force Apple to make a change. So it’s really simple. If you don’t like the way you’re being managed by the company you’re working for, get another job. THAT is the only real power you have (and all you should have). There’s a market for employees, just as there’s a market for computers or phones or anything else. You vote with your feet and your dollars. Anything else is childish and a waste of time.

“First off, the pay is horrible. Most employees are part-time and in order to be considered full-time (which is considered a promotion) you have to be great at not only selling Apple products but also selling “solutions”. Services such as MobileMe, Applecare, One to One and Procare which on average are an extra $129 each. ”

Uhm… nothing about this is wrong. Why wouldn’t you give the best performing employees full time status? What as a manager would you do? Reward the worst-performing employees?

I would like to hear what the grievances are. My experience in retail is that big things get ignored and little things are blown way out of proportion.

I would agree that beyond the Geniuses, inexperience seems to be favored. For my last questions about an Apple product, I had to tell the salesman that they were wrong. At least they did check with a Genius to find out that I was correct.

Maybe with the Microsoft stores opening there will be a greater demand for these employees, so more experience will be needed and wages will increase.

I used to work at a different puget sound area store and left in disgust with the policies. The hours were appallingly bad and the pay was shameful. I will, however, say, that one of the bright spots was the manager, who is now at this store, so it is hard for me to imagine this manager being so “evil”. I can perfectly, see, though, the corporate hand wringing the employees of this store for all its worth. Its sad, but we sort of saw this coming.

@AFGR – I totally understand that. It was not a good place to work. I heard that from just about every puget sound genius I talked to. At least I wasn’t screwed on pay as much as the later guys who were promoted were.

The people I worked with were amazing people to begin with. The quality went down as the years wore on and those quality people found other places to go.

I for one was put onto icky customer mop up duty on several occasions that included house trips(!!!) because of how F’d up the situation became.

I miss the camaraderie of the guys I worked with and put alot into that store. In the end, I think it drove us all insane…

None of this sounds realistic. Granted, we haven’t heard any details of the complaints, but as a former manager of an Apple Store for over 4 years, I cannot believe that things could get so bad they would lead to a possible walk-out.

There would need to be a confluence of stupid store management, regional management and HR management for this to get to where we’re being led to believe it’s gotten, and I just don’t believe it. I’ve dealt extensively with HR at several levels, and while they’re not all ideal people for the job, at the highest levels, they do care about people and at least attempt to work with them. Let’s keep listening and see what info comes to light over time.

I worked in the second store to open in that state. (You’ll often recognize former Apple employees by how vague they are about Apple and their personally identifying information – even years after they are no longer employed.)

It was by far the most stressful job I have ever held and took a serious toll on my mental and physical well-being. I believe that the stress level is likely very similar for every store, but each store has their very own culture set entirely by the store manager. Our store manager was a passive-aggressive, bi-polar nightmare who was terrifying under stress – which was nearly all the time. Each day we wondered whether she was going to blow up at us over some insignificant mistake, or be cheerful and friendly. She literally yelled at some employees, and was regularly completely unprofessional. There were enough complaints about the hostile atmosphere she set that at one point corporate HR came to speak to each of us individually. However, nothing was done.

Apple has a personnel-handling policy that they call “fearless feedback” wherein each employee, including management, must assume that the person to whom they are speaking had positive intent when they performed whatever action it was that was seen as objectionable. Management in particular was supposed to at all times believe that employees mean to perform well and do good things and that they came from a place of good intentions, and handle it that way.

As an example, should an employee be slow on the sales floor and cause delays for customers, the manager should go about addressing it like such: “Employee, I see that you are focusing on each customer in such a way that they feel they have your full attention and that’s wonderful – all our customers deserve to feel this way and I understand that you’re doing a great job providing this level of service. My concern is that we have a higher volume of customers than we have salespeople right now, and though I love the attention you’re providing each customer, many aren’t getting your attention at all because of the singular focus. What I propose is that you practice setting expectations for your customer – give them your solid attention for a few minutes and then explain that there are others you also need to see, but you will be back to check on them. Then focus on another and come back to the first. Should you find that the volume is overwhelming you, call for the floor manager to assist instead of allowing some customers to leave without getting service.”

It’s long winded, but the policy required that management attempt to find the positive intent in everything and approach each employee as if they knew they were the good guys and on the same team. That kind of feedback above is helpful and informative and by policy what should be happening. Management and full time staff were at one point (hopefully still) required to get hours of training in this.

In reality, what happened is that a manager would say, “We need to have a fearless feedback moment,” and then ream the employee for being slow, saying things like (and these are tame examples; real quotes would compromise the generic nature of this missive) “this is unacceptable, this is bad for the store,” and even include threats like losing full time status. Management has made clear on multiple occasions that it doesn’t matter how many good things you do – a single mistake will wipe out your good service record. Mistakes were not acceptable, ever. You could not make a mistake. Zero tolerance for mistakes. Zero.

Fearless feedback was never, ever fearless. No one ever followed this policy correctly in our store. I always feared being spoken to by management. Employees left the store manager’s office in tears on many occasions. Knowing that the manager wanted to talk to me would cause my stomach to turn. It was rarely good. It usually involved long-winded, caustic rants that employees almost universally referred to as “reaming” or “ripping a new one” – never just a reasonable talk. Rarely a professional one. It even came down to personal attacks, accusations of lying or intentional misbehavior.

This may sound like no big deal – In fact, I am no stranger to bad bosses. But constantly walking on eggshells around the manager on top of working in an environment where mistakes were not tolerated and customers felt entitled to abuse the employees… especially because Apple is more of a cult than a company and their customers are like religious zealots or feel that because of Apple’s “downtrodden” past they were doing the company a favor by buying their merchandise. This massive sense of entitlement gave customers some in of license to demand unreasonable things, and store management would always grant it (in spite of whatever corporate policy to which employees were required to adhere), making employees attempting to follow policy “the bad guys.” I had worked retail before, and had spent an entire career in customer-facing positions, but I had never encountered this level of entitlement or abuse by customers.

So, that combination of customer abuse and management abuse alone made the stress almost unbearable. Employees often banded together for comfort and as another commenter noted, turned to heavy drinking. Cliche, but true!

This does not even touch the labor practices such as scheduling. Since it is shift work and encompasses the hours of 7am-11pm and sometimes more in some stores, and because it is retail, of course the hours are going to be miserable. But management regularly refused to follow policy – scheduling too many days on in a row, scheduling a swing shift followed by an early morning shift, not providing the weekly schedule until the day before the week began, changing the weekly schedule in the middle of the week without informing affected employees and then penalizing them for coming in at the “wrong” time – we were told it was our responsibility to check the schedule every single day before we went off shift. Unfortunately, that did not allow any of us to schedule such things as doctor’s appointments and did not allow for the possibility that the schedule changed between the time that we left the store and were next scheduled for a shift.

Time off requests were regularly denied for no given reason, sometimes simply because they were not submitted the ‘required’ amount of time in advance – it didn’t matter that management wasn’t actually scheduling that far in advance, it was just to deny time off on principle. That’s not a speculated reason, that was stated.

Schedules were unnecessarily erratic – sometimes just for the purpose of reminding employees that they could not become comfortable in any particular schedule. As above, not speculation, but stated reasoning.

Overtime was not allowed, but we were required to give a certain level of service. The only solution was to work off the clock – which was also not allowed, of course. It was literally impossible to perform correctly in this case. If we worked overtime we would be unprofessionally reprimanded. If we worked the required hours and did as much as physically possible within that time, but the workload was more than we could complete and certain tasks were not completed, we were unprofessionally reprimanded – see above. This was probably the worst of the three options because it involved a customer being unhappy in addition to management, and management made sure shit rolled downhill and took out the customer’s frustration on the employee. If we worked off the clock, we were unprofessionally reprimanded. Often what we would do is simply “forget” to clock in or out in order to fudge our numbers in a subtle enough manner that we worked off the clock without being caught. The consequences for not being perfect were unreasonable.

There were many, many other issues – some as simple as Apple refusing to provide any kind of basic physical accommodations to employees – the slate floors had no anti-fatigue mats behind the registers or Genius Bar, the registers and GB computers were painful ergonomic nightmares, water was not allowed anywhere on the floor but employees were not allowed to leave the floor (Geniuses in particular were expected to remain at the Bar at all times, but Genii would regularly break this “policy” to get parts for on-the-spot replacements – that’s done away with now by the addition of “runners” for these items). Lunch breaks were hilariously never provided on time, but this was always considered the employee’s “fault” and they were reprimanded for this. 15-minute breaks were not scheduled and rarely allowed.

Just the tip of the massive, massive iceberg. Many more examples could be provided but would be too specific and personally identifiable.

And why did employees not leave or ask for change? We all tried desperately to drink the Kool-Aid, we didn’t have time to look for other jobs (how can you schedule a job interview when you never know your days off and are required to give almost a month’s notice for time-off requests?) and we were physically and mentally exhausted. It was more trouble than it was worth to try to bring about change – the regional management would become literally angry if employees tried to bring up any issues about their store management. She wanted nothing to do with it and always backed the store management and punted the issue back to them to handle, stating that she was too busy for this kind of ‘petty’ stuff. HR was unimpressed generally and even our so-called “HR audit” produced no change.

I loved the job and I loved my co workers, but ultimately the unnecessary stress management put on us was what drove me to leave. Had there been a more professional and understanding manager who I felt was “on my side” and supportive, I would have stayed much longer in spite of the high stress levels of the job itself and the nonexistent promotion prospects. It was a dead end job, but I still enjoyed it. Sadly, to this day simply -visiting- the store makes my stomach tighten in remembered fear. No one should ever be so negatively affected by a job that years after quitting, the literal -fear- of walking into the store remains.

The best part? I heard Alderwood was so much worse that years ago, all the employees signed a letter of no-confidence in their store management and sent it up the chain to corporate. I did not know it could possibly get worse than my store, but it is a sure sign of an undeniably horrible environment when every employee is willing to join together to do something. Usually you have hold outs who don’t want to rock the boat. If it’s bad enough that -everyone- gets on board, it’s very, very bad. Even in my old store, as bad as it was, no one was willing to push for that kind of action. So this must be horrendous.

As someone else noted, the manager now managing that store used to be an assistant manager in our old store and she was a delight to work with. Unfortunately, being a delightful assistant manager does not a delightful ‘full’ store manager make. It makes me sad to hear about this, but I am proud of these employees for banding together to make a strong statement. This is what unions are about, and I regularly wished I had a union to protect my rights.

Go Alderwood!

notice it’s the managers causing the problems;it’s always the managers who screw things up at ANY company.this will never stop,people are people and retail has always been this way.

As an ex apple employee who had the dept of labor side with me on two issues that apple HR ignored, I definitely side with the employees. I have seen so many state and federal violations that it isn’t even funny. Yes this is a time where unemployment is high but to uphold one’s dignity one must stand up for what it believes is right despite these times of uncertainty. I have known that all the way up the chain they ignore complaints and not allowing breaks, safe working conditions, sexual harassment, violating equal opportunity and refusing to address these issues if they are complaining about any of these things that happened at my store and I know many nearby stores than more power to them.

Hey, there name_withheld! I bet I can guess who you are, as I also assisted in opening up that second Apple store in the PS region. And I have to agree about the ASM you were referring to. She was wonderful to work with at that store, but after she moved to a new location, she became less so.

I wish that I could explain this, but I cannot. The expectations set for employees became more and more unrealistic. And as the company focused more and more on staffing as cheaply as possible, the quality of help went down. It got to the point that I had to send people home if our sales for the day were not high enough, which inevitably led to issues in the evenings.

In any case, I hope that if this story is true, this will work to help the employees and stores themselves. But I doubt it…

P.S. name_withheld, if you can figure out who I am, please email me at (myname)@gmail.com

I will give you a hint… Donuts! Oh yeah, and I think I still owe you a Jamba Juice.

It has been so many years, Donut – I’m afraid I can’t recall. Maybe I am not the person you think I am! In any case, I would probably rather -not- be identified, if it can be helped. The truth is, my time at Apple was the best of times and the worst of times. I worked harder there than any other job I’ve ever held, and I like hard work and I think I did excellent work. But nothing changes that in spite of there always being two sides to every story, stuff that should not have happened did and overall the job negatively affected my life.

Looking back, I can spot all the insane treatment I allowed (some things, like being seriously and angrily lectured for not noticing and greeting the manager “properly” -outside the store- before my shift started, I remember and say to myself, ‘You were an -adult- and you let yourself be treated that way?’ – but there really wasn’t much I could realistically do about it), but I also see all the mistakes I made and how I cracked under pressure and responded in ways that didn’t help my case. Still, there was no excuse for that manager’s behavior and in retrospect, it probably didn’t matter much what I did or didn’t do; it wasn’t just me that felt that their treatment was unprofessional.

In spite of the way I write about what happened, I don’t actually have any active anger or anything. It’s really just a touch sad more than anything else. I could have spent several more years there happily if things were different. She was the only one I ever had an intractable problem with – everyone else was at minimum pretty reasonable and at best complete rock stars. Those were the years Apple was still hiring a lot of really competent people. Unfortunately, it only takes one bad store manager to completely foul -everything- up for the entire store.

That you sent people home indicates you were at some point in -some- sort of management position. Unless I once got a photograph of you with an eMac enclosure on your head, I don’t think I know who you are! If I did, though – you were often one of the people that made my time there worthwhile and helped keep me sane(r).

It is absolutely illegal to fire Apple employees because they walk out. This is called a “concerted activity” and is protected by federal law. It doesn’t matter if they are represented by a union or not. The important thing is workers acting together to improve their working conditions. Any questions can be answered by the local office of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a branch of the Dept. of Labor.

Apple will be a better company if it treats it workers, including those at Alderwood Mall, with repect, and abides by the law.

@name_withheld… There isn’t anything to say because what you said is true. It was certainly the case on all sides of the pond. The fatigue matting issue was a huge one for me and a bunch of others stuck on “Bar Duty”. I can’t go into more specifics, but nothing was really done for a long time about it and required plenty of treatment afterwards and because they boned the paperwork L&I wouldn’t cover treatment leaving me with a huge bill because of it.

It will be 3 years this month since I’ve been gone and I really feel for whom I still regard as brothers stuck in the trenches. My quality of life has gone up so much since leaving. And honestly I was an adult when I left and stayed my two week notice. I’d say it was a mistake because mgmt treated me as if I was betraying them for those two weeks, but I was able to say goodbye to all my regular customers, and they were the ones who made the job worth it in the end.

Good luck to all! (and look for ex-mg stuff on FB.)

name@withheld is 100% on the money.

I was a former genius myself at one of the flagship stores in CA. Everything that
name@withheld said is unbiased and true.

Without repeating the above, I will add my personal experiences in hope that Apple Corporate might look at this and truly see something is wrong here. Many people’s lives and careers have been hurt very badly due to Apple’s irresponsible placement of the wrong people in positions of power. In addition, shame on the managers who held so many futures of their employees in their hands only to irreparably damage them due to their incompetence, irresponsibility, immaturity and complete indifference to any sense of duty and dedication to those whom they lead… The Apple Store Manager has become the textbook example for the rule that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

During my time with the ARS I worked under 4 separate managers, all of whom manifested
the same approach to the job. So it wasn’t just an individual’s personal style. There was definitely a prevailing corporate mentality and approach to the job.

While on the job I personally witnessed managers doing the following:

1- openly berating employees, not only in public areas but intentionally in front of other employees to provide the full effect of a public humiliation.

2- Managers frankly and openly telling employees who are expressing concerns that they are easily replaceable should they even think about leaving. While maybe true, is this considered good leadership?

3- Ambushing employees by calling them into the manager’s office for a “quick chat” only to spring a formal reprimand, complete with all the forms already filled out for the employee to either sign or contest the issue with HR.(which we all have seen how effective that is)

4- Managers intentionally blackening an employees’ record when the employee exits the company if the manager feels the employee might take their reason for leaving to corporate, if it can even get past the HR black hole (see point below.) The preemptive blackening of the record basically castrates the employees’ attempt to bring any future grievance or reason for leaving to HR once they have removed themselves from the abusive environment. In one case in particular, I personally witnessed an employee being framed for theft because the manager, as retaliation for the employee’s departure, wanted to prevent them from ever returning to Apple in any capacity.

5- Managers using the store’s connections and resources in an inappropriate manner in order to gain personal favors from influential people in the music and entertainment community. In many cases, managers would give customers free repairs or services, bump them to the front of the repair queue or even replace machines under “customer service” in order to gain personal favors such as tickets to concerts and movie premiers and even possible agent representation for their spouses or significant others.

6- Managers routinely betraying the confidence of their subordinates by communicating concerns or conversations that the employee was assured would not be repeated, only for the employee to find out later that the exact conversation had been formally documented in their file in order to be used against them should management find a use for it later, if it is needed…

7- Managers intentionally blurring the line between friendship and the employee/boss relationship so as to benefit the manager 100% of the time….. The approach was basically that as long as the employee did not displease the manager, they were friends. But the moment something happened, or the manager became unhappy with the employee’s actions (either on or off the job), the friendship suddenly disappeared and the employee was harshly managed or singled out as a troublemaker from that point moving forward and eventually managed out of the job.. Managers routinely did this with the employees as they moved through the ranks and became at first enamored and then weary of them…. It was unprofessional and abusive, much like sexual harassment. It was basically a “be my friend or you won’t do well here, proposition,” which inevitably always ended badly.. While I understand there can be 2 sides here. Look at the power balance in this situation and who really has the control.

8- Managers becoming close with the HR representative for the store in order to gain an advantage at heading off any possible HR grievances that any employee might lodge. Frequently one would find that the GM and HR rep for a store were very close and of like minded purpose. This basically rendered the HR channel for grievance resolution useless, as the HR person would often pocket the grievance or go through the motions of investigation, but change nothing.

There is much more to tell. But I feel this covers the main things I witnessed while I worked at Apple.

I will also say that I still know many who work for the company and have not had these experiences. And I of course know that not all GSMs are like this. But a good many are and as we can see here, Apple needs to do a better job of providing an oversight system to deal with so many unfit employees.

I for one truly believe that if all the employees in the store are in agreement then something is definitely wrong. While there may be two sides to the story, the GSM is the captain of the ship. And the first rule of leadership is that everything is your fault. If the crew wants to walk out. Then the GSM and Apple Corporate should ask the question as to why this has happened and their role in bringing it to fruition, if it does in fact happen… All of us here either have or still do work for Apple and understand the gravity of this decision.. We all know it is not something that they have considered lightly (especially in this economy.)

At minimum, the employees’ commitment to making things better should be recognized, honored and praised by Apple if it truly values the special and unique qualities of each of it’s people, as it claims that it does. Let’s hope they value their employees now more than they have demonstrated in the past, as this situation will surely put that to the test.

Here’s to hoping for a brighter future.

Ex-McG

After reading about how many ARS employees experienced difficulty specifically with their GSMs, you start to wonder what kind of pressure they were under from their management that resulted in pitting them against their employees like this.